Autonomous Vessels in the Yangtze River: A Study on the Maritime Accidents Using Data-Driven Bayesian Networks

The prototypes of autonomous vessels are expected to come into service within the coming years, but safety concerns remain due to complex traffic and natural conditions (e.g., Yangtze River). However, the response of autonomous vessels to potential accidents is still uncertain. The accident prevention for autonomous vessels is unconvincing due to the lack of objective studies on the causation analysis for maritime accidents. This paper constitutes an attempt to cover the aforementioned gap by studying the potential causations for maritime accidents in the Yangtze River by using a Bayesian-based network training approach. More than two hundred accidents reported between 2013 and 2019 in the Yangtze River are collected. As a result, a Bayesian network (BN) is successfully established to describe the causations among different risk influencing factors. By analysing the BN, this study reveals that the occurrence of maritime accidents (e.g., collision, grounding) can be expected to reduce with the development of autonomous vessels as the crews are removed. However, the extent of the consequences from some accidents (e.g., fire, critical weathers) could be more serious than conventional ones. Therefore, more attention and thoughts are needed to ensure the safe navigation of autonomous vessels in the Yangtze River.

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Population genetics of swamp eel in the Yangtze River: comparative analyses between mitochondrial and microsatellite data provide novel insights

PeerJ ◽

10.7717/peerj.8415 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 8 ◽

pp. e8415

Author(s):

Huaxing Zhou ◽

Yuting Hu ◽

He Jiang ◽

Guoqing Duan ◽

Jun Ling ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Population Genetics ◽

Yangtze River ◽

Demographic History ◽

Economic Value ◽

Sex Reversal ◽

Main Stem ◽

The Yangtze River ◽

Comparative Analyses ◽

Using Data ◽

Swamp Eel

The swamp eel (Monopterus albus) is a typical sex reversal fish with high economic value. Several phylogeographic studies have been performed using various markers but comparative research between mitochondrial and nuclear markers is rare. Here, a fine-scale study was performed across six sites along the Yangtze River including three sites on the main stem and three sites from tributaries. A total of 180 swamp eel individuals were collected. Genetic structure and demographic history were explored using data from two mitochondrial genes and eight microsatellite loci. The results revealed the samples from tributary sites formed three separate clades which contained site-specific lineages. Geographic isolation and the habitat patchiness caused by seasonal cutoff were inferred to be the reasons for this differentiation. Strong gene flow was detected among the sites along the main stem. Rapid flow of the river main stem may provide the dynamic for the migration of swamp eel. Interestingly, the comparative analyses between the two marker types was discordant. Mitochondrial results suggested samples from three tributary sites were highly differentiated. However, microsatellite analyses indicated the tributary samples were moderately differentiated. We conclude this discordance is mainly caused by the unique life history of sex reversal fish. Our study provides novel insights regarding the population genetics of sex reversal fish.

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Spatiotemporal dynamics and impacts of socioeconomic and natural conditions on PM2.5 in the Yangtze River Economic Belt

Environmental Pollution ◽

10.1016/j.envpol.2020.114569 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 263 ◽

pp. 114569

Author(s):

Xiao-Jie Liu ◽

Si-You Xia ◽

Yu Yang ◽

Jing-fen Wu ◽

Yan-Nan Zhou ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Yangtze River ◽

Spatiotemporal Dynamics ◽

The Yangtze River ◽

Natural Conditions

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Spatiotemporal Characteristics of Ecological Conditions and Its Response to Natural Conditions and Human Activities during 1990–2010 in the Yangtze River Delta, China

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ◽

10.3390/ijerph15122910 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 15 (12) ◽

pp. 2910 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Ziqi Meng ◽

Min Liu ◽

Qiannan She ◽

Fang Yang ◽

Lingbo Long ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Influencing Factors ◽

Human Activities ◽

Yangtze River ◽

Yangtze River Delta ◽

The Yangtze River ◽

Natural Conditions ◽

Per Capita Gdp ◽

Per Capita ◽

Urbanization Rate ◽

The Yangtze River Delta

The Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region, including Shanghai City and the Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces, is the largest metropolitan region in China. In the past three decades, the region has experienced an unprecedented process of rapid and massive urbanization, which has dramatically altered the landscape and detrimentally affected the ecological environments in the region. In this paper, we analyzed the spatiotemporal variations of ecological conditions (Eco_C) via a synthetic index with analytic hierarchy processes in the YRD during 1990–2010. The relative contributions of influencing factors, including two natural conditions (i.e., elevation (Elev) and land-sea gradient (Dis_coa)), three indicators of human activities (i.e., urbanization rate (Urb_rate), per capita GDP (Per_gdp), the percentage of secondary and tertiary industry employment (Per_ind)), to the total variance of regional Eco_C were also investigated. The results showed that: (1) The Eco_C over YRD region was “Moderately High”, which was better than the national average and demonstrated obvious spatial variations between south and north. There existed fluctuations and an overall increasing trend for Eco_C during the study period, with 20% of the area being deteriorated and 40% being improved. (2) The areas with elevation below 10 m was relatively poor in Eco_C, while the regions above 1000 m showed the best Eco_C and had the most obvious changes (9.33%) during the study period. (3) The selected five influencing factors could explain 91.0–94.4% of the Eco_C spatial variability. Elevation was the dominant factor for about 42.4–52.9%, while urbanization rate and per capita GDP were about 32.5% and 9.3%.

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